The invention disclosed herein is for stabilizing a cluster of articles, particularly, when the articles are being transported on a vehicle such as a cart of lift truck.
In commercial and industrial establishments a cluster of similarly shaped or differently and irregularly shaped boxes or cartons or other objects must be transported from one place to another. One common illustrative example arises in retail stores such as supermarkets where a large number of articles such as boxes containing food are transported on a hand pushed cart from a storage area to shelves in the supermarket where the articles are deposited for being displayed to customers. A collection of differently shaped or irregularly shaped articles is especially unstable. Usually, the supermarket employee will attempt to stack as many articles on a cart that he or she thinks can be transported without slipping and falling off of the cart. Generally, the employee will be careful to not accelerate nor decelerate the cart at a rate that would cause the articles to slip and fall off but the need for exercising this kind of care just increases the time required to transport the articles to their destination. As has frequently been observed, despite exercising of due care, turning the cart too rapidly or bumping into shelving results in the articles being spilled off of the cart. Besides the possibility of damaging the articles, the nonproductive act of replacing the articles on the cart must be undertaken. There are occasions when simply running a cart or truck over a rough surface in a warehouse for example, causes the load of articles to fall off of the vehicle.
Notwithstanding the fact that keeping a cluster of articles from falling off of the vehicle while they are being transported has been a perennial problem, no one has provided a convenient device for stabilizing a cluster or stack of articles while they are being transported.